Australian Greens elders Bob Brown and Christine Milne have dismissed negotiations between current leader Adam Bandt and Labor over a minimum 43 per cent reduction in emissions by 2030 as little more than “symbolic”.
Brown, the founding leader of the Australian Greens, and Milne, his successor, said the real and bigger problem is the federal government’s insistence on retaining coal and gas exports as essential to the Australian economy.
Former Greens leader Bob Brown with his successor, Christine Milne, pictured here in 2012. Credit:The Age and Sydney Morning Herald
However, Brown offered no criticism of the likelihood that the Greens will accept the 43 per cent figure – despite Bandt’s earlier calls for a 75 per cent cut by 2030 and net zero by 2035.
The Greens have been under pressure to pass the Albanese government’s climate bill. That’s in part because in 2009, when the party was helmed by Brown, it voted twice with the Coalition to defeat then prime minister Kevin Rudd’s carbon pollution reduction scheme, citing its lack of ambition.
Former prime minister Julia Gillard’s carbon price, subsequently legislated, survived less than three years.
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